Queen Hortense eBook

With a glowing countenance and in breathless attention,
Louis Napoleon listened to his mother’s narrative.
Hortense, lost in her recollections, had not noticed
that two other visitors, a lady and a gentleman, were
now also on the platform and had listened to a part
of her narrative. As the duchess ceased speaking,
they approached to tell her with what deep interest
they had listened to her narrative of the most glorious
period of French history. They were a young married
couple from Paris, and had much to relate concerning
the parties who were now arrayed against each other
in France, and who made the future of the country so
uncertain.

In return for Hortense’s so eloquent description
of the past, they now told her of a bon mot
of the present that was going the rounds of Parisian
society. It was there said that the best means
of satisfying everybody and all parties would be,
to convert France into a republic and to give it three
consuls, the Duke of Reichstadt, the Duke of Orleans,
and the Duke of Bordeaux. “But,” added
they, “it might easily end in the first consul’s
driving out the other two, and making himself emperor.”

Hortense found the courage to answer this jest with
a smile, but she hastened to leave the place and to
get away from the couple, who had perhaps recognized
her, and told them of the bon mot with a purpose.

Sadly and silently, mother and son returned to their
hotel, which was situated on the sea-side, and commanded
a fine view of the surging, foaming waters of the
channel and of the lofty column of the empire.

They both stepped out on the balcony. It was
a beautiful evening; the setting sun shed its purple
rays over the surface of the sea. Murmuring and
in melodious tace the foaming waves rolled in
upon the beach; on another side, the lofty column,
glowing in the light of the setting sun, towered aloft
like a pillar of fire, a memorial monument of fire!

Hortense, who for some time had been silently gazing,
first at the column, then at the sea, now turned with
a sad smile to her son.

“Let us spend an hour with recollections of
the past,” said she. “In the presence
of this foaming sea and of this proud column, I will
show you a picture of the past. Do you wish to
see it?”

Hortense went to her room, and soon returned to the
balcony with a book, bound in red velvet. Often,
during the quiet days of Arenenberg, the prince had
seen her writing in this book, but never had Hortense
yielded to his entreaties and permitted him to read
any part of her memoirs. Unsolicited it was her
intention to unfold before him to-day a brilliant
picture; in view of the sad and desolate present, she
wished to portray to him the bright and glittering
past, perhaps only for the purpose of entertaining
him, perhaps in order to console him with the hope
that all that is passes away, and that the present
would therefore also come to an end, and that which
once was, again become reality for him, the heir of
the emperor.